Twitter is my favourite Platform right now. What appeals to me is the real-time conversation, the openness and the limitation to 140 characters. I use Twitter for many things and I like it best for connecting with individuals that I wouldn’t have met otherwise.

I have discovered incredible people on Twitter and I even credit Twitter for finding the love of my life. But enough about me.

I recently asked “How do you use Twitter” on my Facebook Page and ended up with great answers. I’m putting in the answers in the listly below but let’s make this post dynamic:

Please vote on your favourite uses and feel free to add more to the list.

What is your favourite use of Twitter

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Care to share your favourite Twitter Story?

Image credit: Cute Twitter birds - pinkmoustache.net

Auto-DMs are SPAM! They are unsolicited messages like any other Spam email. Auto DMs exploit the trust I placed in you by following you on Twitter. If I decide to follow your Twitter updates, why should I follow you on Facebook or download your eBook? I’ll be happy to go to those links if you tell me about them in your tweets.

Good News: There is a way to avoid most of these Auto – DMs!

It is tempting to let a tool take over some of your Social Media tasks and I do use and promote some of them. But whenever you have a chance to use your human side you should make use of that opportunity.

It is much nicer to go through your new followers, read through their bio, scan their last couple of tweets and find something that triggers your interest. Then, send them a @mention tweet

Thanks for following @AsianKelowna Looking forward to your event – when are the Taiko drummers playing?

— Tweet4Ok (@Tweet4OK) May 2, 2012

Don’s sign up to so called “verification services” like TrueTwit these just add automatic DMs and are not effective in reducing Twitter SPAM. In one of my next blog posts I will show you how to tell who is a real person on Twitter and who is not.

Here is the magic bullet: 

Most Auto-DMs are sent through a service called “Socialoomph.com“ so turning off Socialoomph DMs is the best way to get rid of most of these pesky messages.

1. Follow @optmeout with Twitter
2. @Optmeout will follow you back
3. Send a DM to @Optmeout
4. Enjoy using your DM inbox for private messages from real people

Now you can use your DM box for what it is intended for – use it to send private information to followers after you connected to them. Email addresses, phone numbers and other private information don’t belong in the open Twitter feed.

 Have fun with Twitter!

Kill auto-DM!

Don’t SPAM!

Do you have a Auto-DM story? Please share!

I would like to thank Kim from “Just Ask Kim” for teaching me this trick a long time ago

Image: PhotoDune, edited by me

With the help of many friends I co-organized an event yesterday that brought the struggle of the Syrian people into our small city of Kelowna, BC.

Social Media is a revolution in the way we communicate

Wikipedia: A revolution (from the Latin revolutio, “a turn around”) is a fundamental change in power or organizational structures that take place in a relatively short period of time 

Social Media is more than Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest

Social Media connects; it empowers and enables us to collaborate in real time. Never before in history could ideas and opinions travel with such ease. Never before was it as difficult to suppress the flow of ideas. Oppressors can try to block Facebook or Twitter but you can’t turn the clock back on the way we share thoughts and ideas.

News doesn’t break anymore – it tweets. Real time mobile social media tools empower us – they take us from being willing consumers of edited news feeds to being citizen journalists. We become the news source for journalists.

This communication revolution enables us to know about the atrocities committed in countries like Syria. It makes it much more difficult for dictators to kill their people quietly. Social Media makes it much easier for freedom fighters to connect to their supporters and us.

Social Media is about communication – it does not hinder communication but facilitates it!

Last night we organized a very special event talking about what is going on in Syria and the role Social Media plays in the fight for the freedom for the Syrian people and supporters here in Canada. With the help of Skype we invited 4 knowledgeable experts into the Bohemian Cafe in Kelowna.

• Yaman Marwah a Syrian activist living in Ottawa who told us first hand about the struggles of the Syrian People

@YamanMarwah it’s not a matter of religion or anything – they are killing anyone calling for freedom #SyriaKelowna

— Tweet4Ok (@Tweet4OK) April 27, 2012

• Jeanne Remko a student at SFU Vancouver whose parents are Kurdish Syrians and who is very involved in the continued protests in Canada, supporting the fight to remove Assad from power

@Jeannedarcremko: Social Media is the revolutionary tool of the new era – makes it so easy to disseminate information #SyriaKelowna

— Tweet4Ok (@Tweet4OK) April 27, 2012

• Dr. Bessma Momani associate professor of political science at the University of Waterloo. Her family in Syria is clearly afraid. Dr Bessma shared insightful analysis of the political changes that need to occur for lasting change in Syria

Dr Momani: trad media use SM to go around censorship of gov’t controlled avenues #SyriaKelowna

— Tweet4Ok (@Tweet4OK) April 27, 2012

• Omar Alghabra a former MP and community activist in Mississauga Ontario offered his insights on Canada’s role in Syria and his view of a constructive replacement of the Assad regime without military intervention

@OmarAlghabra: information is power and SM provides that and on-going communication adding pressure to regime #SyriaKelowna

— Tweet4Ok (@Tweet4OK) April 27, 2012

• Adam Jones, Associate Professor of Political Science at UBCO moderated the discussion with intelligent questions and insightful comments

Dr @Adamjonesphd wonders what the world should say to Russia who keeps providing arms to the regime? #SyriaKelowna

— Tweet4Ok (@Tweet4OK) April 27, 2012

Find more information about the experts here:  Read More

We all learned a lot about the struggle in the daily lives of those living in Syria as well as the fears of those with family and friends in the country. We learned about the role Canada plays or could play and discussed the future of Syria after the Assad regime is finally removed.

Most interesting for me was the role Social Media tools play in the support of the Syrian Spring. The unfiltered news and video footage jumps over regulations enforced by a military state. These reports supplement the reports that official news media can report from the country. Social Media tells us the story of the average person in Syria.

Facebook, Twitter and YouTube also help in organizing the support here in Canada and community organizers like Yaman successfully use them to raise funds and awareness.

The Twitter #hashtag was #SyriaKelowna. I created a summary collection of some of the evening’s highlights (thanks @michelerule for tweeting  from the event on my behalf)  Storify

The evening was very rewarding for me in many ways. I was able to learn about the situation in Syria first hand and I was able to see the impact Social Media tools have. A lot of lives are spared, a lot of struggles heard because we now have the tools to tell the important stories.

What is your take on the impact of Social Media in situations like this? Please leave a comment to discuss!

 Thank you so much for your help in the event: Okanagan Institute, Alya Ramadan, Michele Rule, Cate Eales, all the panelists and the Bohemian Café, Kelowna, BC

Jeanne Remko is a criminology student at Simon Fraser University, with a passion for human rights and justice. Jeanne’s parents are Kurdish Syrians . She gained activism experience through her father, who has been an outspoken critic of Ba’ath party (ruling party of Syria) and was eventually incarcerated for it.

Jeanne is currently a volunteer with the Amnesty International and is a member of Voice of New Syria Non-Profit Society. Her family was the first to rally in Vancouver against Assad prior to this revolution, and she, along with her family  have continued to rally every week throughout the entire year.

Assad thinks this is another country where people will be pushed to civil war: It’s war against ASSAD, not each other. #ByeBatta

— Jeanne d’Arc Remko (@JeannedarcRemko) April 26, 2012

I often try to distance myself from the word “activist” because so many people have hopped on the activism bandwagon since 2011.  Growing up as a daughter of an exile, I learned from a very young age that activism meant more than just receiving collateral benefits, like fame.  The real benefits of activism affect everyone.  Activists seek to reveal the truth, question authority, and educate the masses in attempts to increase the collective humanity in the world.  There is no question that the Internet and various social media outlets help activists, educators and those wishing to learn more about the world we live in.  Social media becomes a tool, not the activity.  

After the death of a quiet hero of Tunisia, Mohammad Bouazizi, Tunisians took to the street in defiance.  His tragedy not only sparked Tunisia’s revolution, but the entire Arab spring.  The world progressed a little more each time a dictator fell: Ben Ali, Mubarak, Gaddafi.  But the inspirational people of the Middle East had unfinished business.  Syria was next.

            Children wrote slogans on the side of their school: “Bashar, you’re next” in the city of Daraa.  These children were arrested by secret police, and severely tortured.  When the mothers and families demanded their release, the response from security forces were “Go make new children, because you will be saying good bye to these ones soon.”  It is no surprise this ignited protests of several thousands of people, day after day.  

            Syrians took to Facebook to show the world their peaceful protests, and how Assad forces responded.  Since then, thousands upon thousands of clips have been uploaded, showing the sharp contrast between creative protests of the people and the brutish response from Assad troops.  Much of what is recycled through Re-Tweets on Twitter, and Shares on Facebook is horrid to watch but would be worse to ignore.  I find that some people have gotten the “idea” of the violence instigated by Assad troops, so RT and Share is automatic, even without watching.  

            My presence on Twitter is my favourite way to communicate with those on the ground in Syria as well as other activists who have different perspectives to offer.  Twitter has opened by eyes to the vast array of information that is constantly available.  It is like an infinite scroll of education.  With any social media or online site, there needs to be precautions and scrutiny to be able to decipher what is ‘true’ and what is not.  

            Social media is the revolutionary tool of the new millennium.  Revolutionaries no longer wield swords or are on the attack like in previous eras.  The Syrian revolutionary is in the form of a citizen journalist; one of the most noble, important and dangerous roles of the revolution.  They are equipped with camera phones or maybe camcorders, and film tragedy on a daily basis.  

            Social media has also helped in reaching out to family in Syria, to know what the atmosphere is like and what we can do to help in a practical way.  I have been fortunate enough to get in contact with an outspoken revolutionary from Homs who in many ways is an inspiration.  He tweets about the general atmosphere of his city, what happened and has even offers political opinions regarding the main transition opposition entity, the Syrian National Council (SNC).

            Other outlets like Skype are useful in speaking to activists or family who want to talk about the revolution but fear their phone lines are tapped by the government.  They know the government cannot control their online activities.

            It’s easy to become an “activist” online because of the accessibility, low cost, and ability to reach millions of people within seconds.  “Slacktivists” are a new breed created by the click of a “Share” or “Like” that are helpful but not what makes revolutions successful.  It’s easy to forget the quiet, and hard work of millions of activists worldwide who are tireless in their efforts to achieve justice.  It’s safe to say activists voices are amplified with social media, and we will continue to ring in the ears of tyrants and oppressors the world over.

-Free Syria-

Jeanne d’Arc Remko

Photo credit: FreedomHouse on Flickr

This option gives us these advantages:

1. Post attractive images
2. Streamline your branding
3. Add a call to action

For full control format your image 111 x 74 pixels

This is how you do it:

Every day I hear Social Media “Experts” talk about strategy, strategy, strategy and nobody dares to ask what that actually means. I wonder if anybody really knows?  The same experts usually claim that every update in Social Media networks should conform to this strategy. If you look at their own tweets they are sterile, perfectly crafted, scheduled and placed. The questions they ask look forced, like they are copied and pasted out of someone’s free “How To Make Money With Social Media” e-book.

I will tell you a secret: When I see someone that has only these kind of sterile updates in their Twitter or Facebook streams I file them under “Guess I should follow them but don’t expect a human conversation.”

Don’t get me wrong – I do schedule updates and I am guilty of using Twitter as a RSS feed too often. We all get pulled into self promotion sometimes. I’m also glad I still have my private Twitter account @frith64 where I chat about my hobbies and my political opinions.

But! Remember that it’s people that make purchasing decisions, not search engines and not analytics. After all the glitter is gone, consumers as well as B2B (business to business) decision makers are human beings – Social Media works when we manage to establish a direct or indirect personal connection.

People want to connect with People!

To succeed in the business of the future we have to become the very people we’re trying to reach ~@BrianSolis #adaptordie

— Tweet4Ok (@Tweet4OK) March 28, 2012

Now I already hear those who are going to remind me of ROI figures used to sell Social Media campaigns. Don’t get me wrong – there are hard cold numbers that prove that Social Media helps sales. The more important effect of Social Media is ROA (Return On Attention)  – building a human image of a brand that cares about its partners, its community…. the humans in the supply chain.

I’m (not) sorry if these statements are out of tune with many of the Social Media experts out there. It’s hard for any marketer to make the switch from push marketing to social interaction.

Here is what I suggest (and my Social Media coaching clients hear this often):

Be human!

1. “Fear is the path to the dark side” ~ Yoda – Don’t be afraid to make a mistake. Mistakes are human
2. YOU are your brand! People buy your product/service because they are convinced that you care most
3. People want to connect with humans on Social Media, otherwise they would take an easier path and buy through traditional channels
4. YOU are a consumer too – examine what makes you decide on a product or service, what makes you want to connect with someone on Social Media and then emulate what you like
5. Go ahead - blur the lines between business and your personality and enjoy the long term effects
6. Social Media is real life and everything goes easier if you have fun with what you are doing

 Let’s put the FUN back into Social Media!

Have a look at the two recent outstanding Social Media Success Stories: Google+ and Pinterest. If you listen closely to the early adopters they will tell you that what they enjoy most is the human interaction and the fact that marketers haven’t found a way to turn the new platforms into push-marketing machines.

I dare you, Social Media Experts: Let me know where I am wrong – give me a good reason to clean up my tweets!

I ask you humans on the Interwebs: What do you think?

PS: Thank you Aaron Lee for sharing this blog post on your Facebook Page: 16 Terrible Social Media Mistakes You’re Making and triggering this rant

• Add your favourite Pinterest blog posts to the list below
• Discover and read some of the posts and then
• Vote if you like or dislike the post
• Comment if you like

Blog posts with more “likes” will show higher on the list – so if you post your own Pinterest blog post, feel free to encourage your network to boost your rankings

The Ultimate Pinterest Resource List

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I have been asked several times to write a blog post about Pinterest but with it\\’s popularity it seems like I would be repeating what others have done so this list is a crowdsourced list of the best Pinterest posts out there. Fnd my blog post here: http://tweet4ok.com/pinterest

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LIST: The Ultimate Pinterest Resource List. I added:Pinterest - Wikipedia, the... list.ly/13X #blog posts #Pinterest #Social Media

— Tweet4Ok (@Tweet4OK) April 10, 2012

Do you have your own Pinterest Story? Please share it with us!

April 26th, 5 pm

Bohemian Cafe, Bernard Ave, Kelowna

What’s going on in Syria? There is no simple answer, but there is a lot to talk about.

Okanagan Institute in partnership with Tweet4Ok Social Media Services presents a

Syria Session on Thursday, April 26th at 5 pm at the

Bohemian Cafe on Bernard Ave, downtown Kelowna.

Seating is limited! Please reserve here: http://www.okanaganinstitute.com/register.php 

Join us for an open discussion about the politics, violence, and citizen journalism in Syria that is making headlines around the world.

Three speakers will help shed light on the complicated issues surrounding the current situation. They have, in some capacity, been directly involved in the movement that has cost thousands of Syrian lives.

Yaman Marwah @YamanMarwah is a Syrian youth Activist who works on issues related to human rights and pure rule of Law. Currently, the president of the Syrian Student Association in Ottawa studying Law and Economics at Carleton University. He’s a collective activist who used a web-based organizing to support the democratic movement in Syria.  Yaman is also on the board of directors of the Syrian Canadian Council, which organized mostly all of the events in Ottawa, Montreal and the GTA area.

Jeanne d’Arc @JeannedarcRemko is a criminology student at Simon Fraser University, with a passion for human rights and justice. Jeanne’s parents are Kurdish Syrians . She gained activism experience through her father, who has been an outspoken critic of Ba’ath party and was eventually incarcerated for it. Jeanne is currently a volunteer with the Amnesty International groups and the women’s centre at her school and amember of Voice of New Syria Non-Profit Society. Her family was the first to rally in Vancouver against Assad prior to this revolution and also in February 2011. They have continued to rally every week throughout the entire year.

Dr. Bessma Momani is Associate Professor in the department of Political Science at the University of Waterloo in Canada and the Balsillie School of International Affairs. She is also a Senior Fellow at the Centre For International Governance and Innovation, a think-tank in Waterloo, Canada.

Dr. Momani is a regular contributor to national and international media on the Arab Spring and on global economic governance issues. She is a specialist on the International Monetary Fund and on economic liberalization in the Middle East. The author of several books and scholarly articles, her work examines the intersection between international economics, finance, and global politics.

Omar Alghabra @OmarAlghabra is a long-time resident and community activist in Mississauga.
Alghabra completed his Mechanical Engineering degree at Ryerson University. 
Inspired by his first-hand experience of the challenges and opportunities faced by everyday Canadians, Omar’s community service evolved into political activism.
In 2006, Omar was elected as Member of Parliament for the riding of Mississauga-Erindale. As an MP Omar championed political accountability, immigration reforms, equal human rights, foreign policy, infrastructure funding, energy and the environment.
In addition to his work for the community, Omar served in the Liberal Shadow Cabinet as Citizenship and Immigration Critic and later as Natural Resources Critic.
Omar has always strived to do politics differently. Through his dedication to community work, political activism and pursuit of social change, Omar has proved his ability to making Canada a better place for all, and provided innovative ideas about our future direction.

Adam Jones @adamjonesphd will act as moderator for this unique session. He is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of British Columbia Okanagan. Adam is the author of “Genocide: A Comprehensive Introduction” (2nd ed., 2010) and author or editor of fifteen other books. Jones has travelled extensively in the Middle East since the 1980s, including to Syria, and has published widely on the region in books and journals.

The speakers will join us via Skype where they will offer a unique insight into the current unrest in the region. Participants will then be directly involved with the discussion with the speakers through a Q and A.

The session will also offer a web aspect where people can chat online about the discussion and pose questions to the speakers via twitter #SyriaKelowna or webinar.

Join the discussion about the latest, and quite possibly bloodiest uprising in the Middle East. As the Arab Spring continues into its second year, people in Kelowna will get a rare opportunity to speak and interact with individuals who are directly involved in the movement.

Social Media is an important tool for interaction and real-time reporting where traditional journalism finds it’s limitations. (Is Social Media a News Network?) I am very excited and thankful to be involved in this amazing session.

Seating is limited! Please reserve here: http://www.okanaganinstitute.com/register.php

Please leave your input in the comments!

Who to follow is certainly one of the most difficult questions for any Twitter user. I don’t subscribe to the method to follow everybody – even if they followed me first. Every once in a while I use a service called Twitcleaner to clean up.

I am still looking to connect with real people on Twitter. I have met quite a few and every day there are more! But I also go and discover new people to follow every day. And sometimes I end up with disappointing results – some of the people I follow end up using Twitter as an automated tool to push their ads or blindly copying their Facebook updates to Twitter (one of my pet-peeves).

I also believe it is important to keep the follower / following ratio about even. You may have noticed that Twitter limits the amount of accounts you can follow at on time. If you want to follow more than 2000 accounts there are ratios to observe.

Following (account-based): Once an account is following 2,000 other users, additional follow attempts are limited by account-specific ratios. The Follow Limits and Best Practices Page has more information. ~Twitter Help Center

Even more reason to focus your following to accounts that bring value to your Twitter experience!

Now, you could go through your extensive list of accounts and unfollow some…. that would take a while. Fortunately @SiDawson  developed a program that analyses pre-sorts the accounts you follow!

theTwitcleaner.com 

You sign in with your Twitter account and let Twitcleaner do it’s job. Depending on how many accounts you follow this may take a few minutes. In the mean time it may be a good idea to check how you look for others!

Ha ha. @TwitCleaner told me I was frickin’ awesome! Check yourself here: twitcleaner.com

— Tweet4Ok (@Tweet4OK) April 5, 2012

Once the little Twitclean bird is finished it sends you a DM (Direct Message) and then you can review the results and make your choices:

No, I don’t kick everybody out that shows up with a negative rating! A lot of the tweeps are on my list because I see value in what they share, even if it’s mostly links or if they are what some call “chatty tweeps”. However, Twitcleaner is a great educational tool for me. It’s one of the tools that help me be a person and not a robot on Social Media.

What do you think? Have you tried Twitcleaner? Are you “guilty” of some of the “dodgy behavior” that Twitcleaner points out?

Over the last couple of years a growing number of web sites take part in this movement and turn off their site for this hour.

If you would like your WordPress Site to take part you can use the Earth Hour Plug in by Brave New Code

It’s really easy, here is how you do it: